


there were sirens in the beat of your heart

by sumaru



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe - Spies & Secret Agents, Blood, Complicated Relationships, Enemies to Lovers, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative, Oikage Big Bang 2018, Pining, Spies & Secret Agents, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-05
Updated: 2019-01-05
Packaged: 2019-10-04 09:57:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17302505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sumaru/pseuds/sumaru
Summary: Assassination, infiltration, interrogation — despite how much he soaks up under Oikawa's reluctant guidance at the agency, Kageyama still hasn't learned how to navigate the shifting loyalties.And while a sniper hit is clean, everything else a secret agent does is dirty work.





	there were sirens in the beat of your heart

**Author's Note:**

> My absolutely wonderful partner for this piece was Chiptrillino! We had such a screamingly good time being horny on main for this (lol) and it was an honour to work with her. 
> 
> [Please check out her amazing art for this chapter here.](http://chiptrillino.tumblr.com/post/181732253131/kageyama-finally-breathes-im-im-not-a-gun)
> 
> And a huge thank you to my champion beta reader [rokutagrl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rokutagrl)!
> 
> (Tags and rating will be subject to change. Fic updates will be every time I clean up my act and get it together.)

 

 

 

Kageyama never hesitates. 

He doesn’t flinch. He doesn’t blink. He doesn’t miss.

These are the things that Oikawa once taught him.

 

 

 

 

*

 

 

 

 

It rains the day Kageyama finds Oikawa again. It hadn't rained in a long time, and it washes down the sky in a bone-chilling grey that drips under the collar of his shirt — gentle, and shivering, and terrible.

“It's just like you, Oikawa-san.” _Like the rain_ , he means, and doesn't mean, he can't quite stop the nonsense of it from tumbling out. His shoulder is numb from where the strap of his rifle bites into the muscle. He’s been chasing Oikawa for days, but Kozume-san’s intel is never wrong.

Oikawa’s eyes flash in the gloom. It takes one whole shaky breath for Kageyama to realise that Oikawa — who could always snatch from the tip of his tongue whatever Kageyama is about to say before he says it himself — doesn’t know what he means. The rain picks away at the flimsy metal overhang that offers them scant shelter. They’re both so far from home and everything aches like he’d been scraped raw across the rooftops.

When Kageyama touches the back of his neck, he realises that the wetness there hadn’t been rainwater at all.

 

 

 

 

*

 

 

 

 

Oikawa-san once said to him: _“If my blood isn’t on your hands by the time we’re done, you weren’t paying attention.”_

Kageyama always pays attention.

 

 

 

 

*

 

 

 

 

Kageyama hesitates. 

It takes all of a right hook under the guard of his hands and he’s swept off his feet, on his back again, pain radiating from where his shoulders hit the ground first. Starbursts flare behind his eyes as he gulps down a breath, lets it rattle against his gritted teeth. It _hurts_. But it’s been hurting for the last two weeks of close combat training at the agency, this is nothing new, and it’s the _sameness_ of it that strikes frustration in him so deep he digs his shoulders back, winces as the concrete bites into the skin.

“Giving up already? How boring, Tobio-chan!” 

Oh, Oikawa-san is still there then. Usually he walks off to grab his phone so he can relish in Kageyama’s embarrassment every time he puts him on his back. Kunimi once told him there’s a whole album of them, just rows and rows of Kageyama, red-faced and legs akimbo, even Kunimi’s usually dull voice sounding impressed, _“You can actually put your legs all the way over your head, huh.”_

Kageyama grimaces. He’s still not sure what’s worse.

“Just when you seemed to be getting it right, too. What a pity! I guess even a genius like you can’t just pick everything up in one go.”

Kageyama’s eyes snap open. He’s on his feet faster than his spine can follow and he wavers like a reed under the chilling breeze of Oikawa’s smirk.

“I did good?” Something warm tightens in his chest to the point of breaking.

“Absolutely not,” Oikawa laughs as he tosses the sweat from his bangs. It’s not a happy laugh. But— it’s not _unhappy._ White fluorescent lights flicker across Oikawa’s shoulders and he’s so languid under the lights, wears even this cheap glow so easily, that the bleak and dusty training room they always practice in, for the first time, doesn’t feel small or suffocating at all.

“Then please keep watching me. Please keep teaching me!” His hands are clenched so tight at his side, his nails dig the feeling right under the skin, red half-moons flushed full of greed; he can’t help it, he’s wanted so many things since he’d been placed under Oikawa’s reluctant mentorship that it feels like he’s young all over again. 

Oikawa stares at him; Kageyama stares right into the lights to keep himself from dipping his spine. The last time he had bowed, Oikawa had pushed his shoulders to the ground, had hissed into his ear that only idiots left themselves open at any time.

It’s almost like a game to see who gives in first: the fluorescent glare that threatens to burn the image of this room right here — of Oikawa with eyes narrowed and fingers curled like claws — into the back of Kageyama’s eyes; or the kindness that he knows has been piling up, crumbs that Oikawa has casually discarded, drifting into the far corners of the room until it can’t be ignored any longer. 

Oikawa-san had stayed today. He had _stayed_.

The look that Oikawa drops on him pierces right through. But Kageyama stiffens, stands just a little taller. It’s the look that promises bruises in new and exciting places.

 

 

 

 

*

 

 

 

 

Kageyama had arrived at the intelligence agency first in his graduating class, trained in an extensive and impressive array of firearms, extraction protocol, and long distance support. His sniper’s accuracy had been legendary — almost as well-known as the long days in the makeshift sniper’s nest that he practically lived in, and the scowl that sat perpetually on his brow. 

_“Don’t cross His Royal Highness up there in his castle,”_ they had said, _“or he’ll shoot you the moment you get too close,”_ not knowing Kageyama had slipped the noise cancelling headphones back to ask if they wanted to practice on the shooting range with him. They never did.

But Oikawa-san had taken one look at Kageyama's little nest tucked away in the hollowed out skyscraper that they used for drills, at his thin futon, at the meticulous calibrations of his custom scope, at all the little things that Kageyama held dear stacked neatly in a meager pile against the wall, and Oikawa’s mouth had dropped, face turned so impressively ugly, Kageyama had seen it exactly for the challenge it was. And Kageyama had known he did right in coming here.

Iwaizumi-san had just snorted, slapping the back of Oikawa’s head so hard he yelped. “Looks like you moved in and picked up right where Shittykawa here left off! Good for you, Kageyama.” 

It's only later when they’re alone that Iwaizumi gives Kageyama a little pocket knife, _“For when you start learning how to get up close and personal with Oikawa.”_ It’s ink black except for the handle, which gleams a fathomless blue under the city lights that sweep over his face before he falls asleep, and Kageyama’s heart swells as he carefully lays it on top of his pile of keepsakes.

 

 

 

 

*

 

 

 

 

Oikawa always pretends to hesitate. 

It’s just right there, in the way he shifts his shoulders. The droop of his body like a wounded animal. Kageyama knows better than to fall for any of Oikawa’s feints, but there’s something mesmerising about the light that glances sharp in the corner of Oikawa’s mouth, a misplaced feeling he’s been trying to fit into place since he first met him, following him, following the line of it closely— _too closely_.

And the game is lost all over again.

He’s on his back. His breath wheezes painfully back into this lungs from where the concrete has punched it from him; and Oikawa adds another trophy to his collection before Kageyama can even brush the dust from his pants.

“Do you think your face can do anything different?” Oikawa is scrolling through his phone, nose scrunched up in displeasure.

Kageyama scowls darkly. “My face is fine.”

“I was thinking of printing these out, you know, giving them to Kunimi and Kindaichi as gifts for their first mission. As a reminder of what’s waiting for them at home if they fail,” Oikawa continues as if Kageyama hadn’t said anything. “When,” and now Oikawa looks up, looks right at him, eyes glittering like a steel edge, and he almost wishes Oikawa hadn’t, “do you think you’ll also be ready to go out into the field?”

His chest pinches tight. Kunimi and Kindaichi were supposed to be his training team — his communications and backup. But he had built his little sniper’s nest too well, had kept to it so excellently it’s like they didn’t want to keep with him anymore at all; and now they were being graduated to the field without him. He thought he had been ready, too. Instead, “I should have been assigned with them.”

“Is that what my dear Tobio-chan thinks?” 

The threat of Oikawa’s kindness runs electric down his spine before he even registers the words, but Oikawa is still faster than him. An arm shoots out and pulls the little inky knife from Kageyama’s thigh strap, and the world tips just a little as the black metal point kisses the bob of his throat. Kageyama swallows thickly. The wall behind him is cold. Danger roils hot and heavy in his stomach.

“Hm, that sounds like a _no_.” Oikawa’s smile is feral. The knife doesn’t move. But Kageyama’s chin is edging up, up, pulled by Oikawa’s dark gaze as he closes in, the press of his chest so warm and solid and it’s like the weight of all Kageyama has ever wanted cornering him. It’s all he can stare at in this small space: Oikawa’s little smile, Oikawa’s little knife, and there’s nowhere to go except right onto the sharp point of both. “You know, if I can read you so easily, that means someone else can, too.”

Kageyama feels his cheeks burn. He doesn’t understand this game at all. “Oikawa-san, is this a test?” 

“It’s all a test! Didn’t my hopelessly useless kouhai want me to teach him all of my tricks?”

It’s getting harder to breathe. But it’s not the air, it’s not the pressure, it’s just— Oikawa. The light swings gently overhead. It’s always been Oikawa. _Freefall churning in his stomach. Overwhelming._ Kageyama sucks in a breath despite himself and the warm puff of Oikawa’s words on his mouth tastes like mint. This close his skin smells like summer sun, and lemon soap, and the sweet warm metal that he has strapped somewhere under his clothes. It smells— nice. _Familiar_. And Kageyama’s hands itch at his side, itching to see if he can close any of this impossible distance of nothing at all.

Because Kageyama _has_ been paying attention. Kageyama now knows exactly how to turn the knife around.

The single eyebrow, lifted elegantly. The tip of a pink tongue, darting between white teeth. And before Kageyama knows it, he’s tracking all of those, too, like they’re the most dangerous things that could possibly be pushing against him. There’s a laugh that rumbles deep somewhere in Oikawa’s chest as he notices, because of course he does, and Kageyama can feel it ripple somewhere deep inside him, shivering, shuddering, suddenly too warm under the weight of Oikawa’s single, unwavering focus.

“But I guess you pass this time!” 

Oikawa’s grin is a brilliant thing that burns as he licks the tip of Kageyama’s nose; a little rough kitten lick, mint and lemon washing over him so strikingly, the whole entire world tips all over again and he hits the ground. Bruises on top of bruises on top of bruises. Everything is whirling.

“Girls don’t like it when you hesitate,” Oikawa tuts as if he hadn’t just flicked a knife at Kageyama’s throat. As if Kageyama’s nose isn’t still warm and wet from that pink tongue. “They want you to kiss them like you mean it! You’re never going to seduce a mark like that, Tobio-chan.”

“That’s not what you’re supposed to be teaching me,” Kageyama mutters. He rubs his nose, feeling humiliated in a completely different way. It burns red heat across his cheeks and his collarbones and the idea of looking up at Oikawa from this too familiar place on the floor feels like the end of the world. 

The grin fixes on him as Oikawa places a foot on his chest; Kageyama’s lungs heave, eyes snapping up. The training room lights are a white nova, glowing like a crown that lights up the back of Oikawa’s head and casts his eyes in shadow. Kageyama can’t seem to take a breath at all, and he’s not sure if it’s the hot heavy feeling flooding his stomach, tingling to the very tips of his fingers; the way sweat flicks off Oikawa’s throat with every move; or the bending knee slowly putting pressure on his chest.

“I’m going to take you apart and put you back together,” Oikawa hisses, leaning in. His eyes are midnight even in the bright light.

Kageyama finally breathes. “I’m— I’m not a gun, Oikawa-san.”

“Not yet.” Oikawa’s smile is wide and something in Kageyama wants to break. “But you will be, when I’m done with you.”

 

 

 

 

*

 

 

 

 

“Will you be able to finish the job?” For once, Tsukishima doesn’t sound unkind.

These days, Kageyama feels like he's only truly awake when the sun goes down — in the shadows, he does his best work. Hinata says his night vision is terrifying; Tsukishima had snickered about his nickname among the new recruits (“Seems like the King has lost his high throne, but you'd think they could come up with something better than just _The Death Crow_.”); but they had both looked at him all too keenly when the intel from Nekoma finally came in.

The data had come directly from Kozume-san; a done deal.

“Sulkyama! I’ll do it for you if it makes you sad! Just say the w—”

“Dumbass! You can’t even hit the practice target! What makes you think you can do this?” But the way they’re both looking at him right now — he would almost have preferred that Tsukishima was insulting him, that Hinata was slapping him in the ribs. Almost. Their gentleness unsettles him even more than the mission briefing had. “Don’t be stupid. I can do this.” 

When the sun goes down, he pulls the hood of his jacket closer around his face. It doesn't smell of lemon soap anymore. Just unwashed cotton, and black coffee, and the clean smell of the wind that cuts lonely through the night.

And Kageyama waits for the stars to come out.

 

 

 

 

*

 

 

 

 

Oikawa always said things like, “It’s very easy, Tobio-chan, you just have to take them out before they take you out!” Which _of course_ Kageyama _knows_. But then Oikawa would wink at him and all the notes would get jumbled up in his mind again. Was this another test? Was there something else in him that Oikawa needed to prove?

He feels like he’s missing something important.

But he still pays attention.

Kageyama is always hungry; he can't explain it. He shuts his eyes and it's always there gnawing at his guts. If he's run himself ragged in the training field, he wants to push it for five runs more. If he's hit the mark a dozen times clean through the centre, he needs to up it to twenty. And if he's put Oikawa-san on his back once, he needs to— _oh_ , the way surprise had frozen Oikawa's eyes wide under the fluorescent lights as they blinded him on the way down. The way Oikawa's long lashes had fluttered as his back had hit the ground.

Feigned hesitation; right hook under the guard. And Oikawa had finally looked at him, completely and utterly.

“More,” Kageyama pants, eyes locked onto Oikawa’s face, searching. He still has his hands up. He’s even more ready now. He feels electric with possibility. “Again. Please.”

Oikawa plays it off, puffs up his cheeks as he whines, “Tobio-chan is always so demanding!” But he’s not smiling.

It’s exhilarating. The burn in his lungs is a good pain. Kageyama knows he’ll be a map of bruises tomorrow but each one just brings him closer to— being better? To being the _best_. Closer to being better than Oikawa-san. 

Oikawa, who showed him exactly how to breathe properly before taking the shot. 

Oikawa, who didn’t move for four days waiting for a mark to appear in his scope. 

Oikawa, whose tongue could cut a path in and out of every mess in more ways than one.

Kageyama will earn himself less bruises, one day at a time. Of this, he has no doubt. So why won’t Oikawa-san clear him for an actual training mission in the field?

“It’s because—” Oikawa snarls, as if reading his mind. “You’re still too stupid—” 

Kageyama can’t track Oikawa’s hands fast enough to block him but he’s learning, he’s learning, if he could _just_ —

“—to know when you’ve _lost_.”

Oikawa doesn’t punch him in the mouth. It’s not that kind of lesson today. Instead he opens his hand into a slap, hard and flat, and it cracks across Kageyama’s lips. He’s so stunned he bites down on his tongue; blood drools down his chin as he stands there under the lights, eyes wide. He can taste it in his teeth — coppery, fearsome, primal. Everything still hurts but it hurts _good._

Oikawa huffs. “Gross, Tobio-chan.”

“Thank you, Oikawa-san,” Kageyama says instead. He now knows that Oikawa holds onto the kill shot for just a fraction of a moment, upsetting an enemy’s rhythm, and Kageyama files this detail away for later. And this time— he bows deep. He can practically feel Oikawa prickling with the opportunity he’s presenting, and he can’t help the smile that tugs at his mouth, just a little: let Oikawa-san teach him something else then. “I won’t lose anymore!”

“When did you get so cheeky! You can’t just say it, that’s not how it works!”

They’re in the main training area today and he straightens up as Iwaizumi walks in from the shooting range. Kunimi and Kindaichi are in tow in full field gear, tight black and strapped down with obvious handguns and hidden knives, but they eye him warily anyway. Oh, the blood. He absentmindedly wipes it on his sleeve, but it just ends up smeared across his chin instead.

“Hey Shittykawa, stop being shitty for at least once in your life and get the kid a towel!” 

An indignant squawk from Oikawa. “I’m teaching him!”

“Yeah, I saw him put you on your ass. He’s doing great.”

Something bubbles up inside him; Kageyama wants to laugh. “Thank you Iwaizumi-san!”

But Kindaichi rolls his eyes as they walk past and something falls away inside his chest; Kageyama flushes with the burning feeling of it. He knows he’s done nothing wrong, but there’s that impossible chasm that’s grown between him and Kindaichi and Kunimi. He wants to say something, anything to walk across it just a little, but— he looks between Oikawa and Iwaizumi ribbing each other so easily, between Kindaichi and Kunimi with their heads and smiles leaned close, and wonders why it feels like even if he’s found a place here, here where he has a place to sleep and eat and learn everything he could ever want to learn, he’s still on the outside. 

He feels eyes on him. Oikawa is tracking the slope of his shoulder, and something flickers across his face. But then Oikawa just smiles, delight a dangerous glow on his cheeks as he puts his hand to his lips, and Kageyama immediately locks on to that pink tongue that sucks around two long fingers, half-lidded eyes never leaving him. It’s suddenly like another game being lost — he doesn’t know what, but he’s too aware of everything, overly sensitive to the shift of his clothes tight and prickling against skin, sweat pooling in the dip of his spine. How tight and hot and terrible and wonderful his entire body feels.

“Oikawa-san?” Too aware of how red Oikawa-san’s mouth is.

And then Oikawa is wiping those fingers on him, slick spit rubbing off the drying blood on Kageyama’s chin like he's a child; it feels stupid and _awful_ but not— not awful like the way he felt before. He squirms in vain as Oikawa laughs, grabs his chin with his other hand so forcefully he can’t even turn his head. “Stay still, Tobio-chan! I'm being a good senpai! Isn’t this what you wanted?”

 _No_ , Kageyama thinks. The slide of Oikawa’s finger is hot across his mouth. But for the first time, what he wants suddenly feels impossible.

 

 

 

 

*

 

 

 

 

The intelligence agency demands total commitment; a total kind of loyalty.

But in return it gives you— everything. A sense of duty. A sense of doing good. The push that people like Kageyama will forever yearn for, their talents too excellent and too dangerous for the mundane world. Training can take months; it can take years. And agents still in training can’t leave the network of designated buildings during that time, not without special clearance.

Kageyama doesn’t mind. He’s already left behind the sunlit world he felt so unsuited for, and in his makeshift sniper nest nestled in one of the concrete blocks that loom over the city, it feels a little bit like home. Being up this high, trace smell of nitroglycerine lingering sweetly, cold biting into his bones and keeping him fully awake and aware; he really loves being able to see everything. Sometimes you can even catch a star or two, squinting in between the neon and yellow haze that sits on the horizon just as the sun sets. It all draws him a path to where he wants to be.

Wind blows in from the window — there’s no glass and it’s a long fall to nothing, but Kageyama likes that feeling a little bit, too. Something that could maybe feel like flying. The breeze ruffles though his hair still wet from his shower as he eats a curry ration; it’s a little dry and he wishes he had found better, this late at night, past the missed dinner hours and no longer invited to Kindaichi’s secret snack runs. Hunger gnaws at him; and another unsettling feeling gnaws him hollow, too.

“Here you are! I thought you might have given this place up, but of course you wouldn’t. It’s terrible in the winter, Tobio-chan, but it seems like terrible is something you’re looking to perfect, too, isn’t it?” 

A familiar shadow looms over him and something cold taps against his cheek. Kageyama scowls, trying to bat it away.

“Thank your senpai properly! The dining hall was closed and I had to trade a milk bread with Iwa-chan for this!”

Of course it’s Oikawa. _Of course?_ But he’s tapping the cold thing insistently again and Kageyama shakes the thought lose, finally grabs at whatever it is— oh, a little milk box. 

Oikawa is leaning against the open window, eased into the space like he’s always been here, and Kageyama remembers this place used to belong to Oikawa, too. He looks completely natural, every line of his body coiling around the heavy quiet as if he was born to it; his entire existence a perfect kill shot just waiting for the right moment. Oikawa-san always smells a little bit of nitroglycerine, too. Something in Kageyama aches, suddenly.

“Thank you, Oikawa-san,” Kageyama says, because he means it completely, and because he doesn’t know what else to say to a gift like this.

“They’re going to send you out there one day, and they’re going to ask you _why_ ,” Oikawa sings airily instead, but he’s not looking at Kageyama, just up, over the rooftops, away, and his voice clips dry and harsh over every consonant, and Kageyama wants to ask what he’s looking at because he’s always been looking, too. “And you’ll answer _I was ordered to_ because you’re actually that much of an idiot.” 

“But I _will_ have been ordered to,” Kageyama frowns, pausing mid-sip, teeth still clenched around the straw. The milk is chilled, but the container is warm where Oikawa’s fingers had held it; his hand tightens around this fleeting heat, squeezing just a little too hard, like he can keep it there through sheer will alone. “By you,” he tries. Something bigger is lodged behind that thought but he can’t quite figure it out yet.

Orders are orders. If they sent you into the field, it’s because you have a purpose; if they called you back, it’s because—

“My absolutely hopeless, absolutely obedient little idiot.” Oikawa’s laugh is a little huff of chilly air. But he still doesn’t look at him.

Something snaps in Kageyama. “Put me on your team, Oikawa-san!”

This time, Oikawa does look at him and Kageyama almost falters under his gaze, the amber of Oikawa’s eyes flashing like gold in the dark. But Oikawa is finally looking at him and Kageyama doesn’t want to look away.

“Never.”

Kageyama bristles, but Oikawa continues, “Yes, yes, I know you’re a genius shot, yes, yes, can probably last out there for days, though who would want to spend days out there with this supremely uncute face, I don’t even know—”

“I’m—”

“No, you’re annoying and stubborn! And apparently think it’s fine to interrupt your senpai who goes out of his way to teach you so much!”

“You don’t teach—”

“See! Interrupting again! Tobio-chan never learns!”

Kageyama doesn’t know what to say to this, it’s like he can never pin anything down when Oikawa runs in circles around him, so he just frowns and sucks in a mouthful of milk. It tastes sweet, even in the cold that saps everything until only greys are left, except for the pinpoint of bright red warmth that is Oikawa-san, beside him. He wonders how Oikawa knows he loves the squeeze of these little milk boxes; but then, Oikawa always remembers all the details, too.

“You’re not ready,” Oikawa says with dull finality, standing. His hand brushes against the concrete, and Kageyama watches the fingers tap out an indecipherable code — short, short, short, long, long, and then a quick patter like an old pop song.

Kageyama frowns at his hands. “When will I be ready?”

“When you stop hesitating before you lead with your left. When you can finally take me out. When you stop getting such ugly haircuts.” Oikawa’s mouth flattens into a knife’s edge. “When you’re better than me.”

Something freezes Kageyama cold, but it’s not the wind, it’s not the concrete sending chills up his spine; it’s just this space between them. He swallows it anyway. There’s so much piling up inside his mouth and Oikawa is right here. “I’m… I will be. As good as you, one day. And then I’ll be better.”

“That’s exactly what they want, Tobio, but you can’t _be_ me.”

It’s not what Kageyama meant; but Oikawa isn’t looking at him anymore. His expression has fixed itself in place and Kageyama can’t read it at all.

“Let them do all the hard work. People are always so eager to judge you, all you ever need to do is nudge them in the right direction. Take you, for example!” Oikawa pokes him right between the eyes and Kageyama frowns right into it. _“Oohhhh, look at this tall and handsome man, look how serious he is!_ ”

He flushes and chooses to ignore Oikawa's nonsense, mumbles, “There's nothing wrong with being serious.”

“Of course not! But they don't know that underneath that silent facade is an absolute idiot.” Oikawa's eyes gleam. “So go ahead and open that idiot mouth of yours and ruin the illusion. But do Oikawa-san a favour and let them know exactly the kind of idiot _they_ are, when you put two bullets into their face from a distance.”

Kageyama wants to say something, he wants to protest, wants to thank him, wants to untangle this frustration that’s been building up a wall between them, but Oikawa is obviously done. He’s already leaving, and it strikes such a vivid sense of known loneliness in Kageyama, like he’s lived something like this all over again, that his whole entire chest crumples with the chasm of it.

And Oikawa always knows, somehow. He reaches out a hand and flicks Kageyama’s bangs playfully, and his hand is so warm that Kageyama almost, almost leans into it.

 

 

 

 

*

 

 

 

 

When Kageyama is cornered, he always goes for the kill shot.

 

 

 

 

*

 

 

 

 

“Unbelievable. I can’t believe we’re all going to die on our first mission.”

Kindaichi scoffs. “King doing infiltration is lmaoooo.”

“Did you just say ‘lmaoooo’ out loud?” Kunimi’s tone is completely placid. “I’m gonna leave you behind, too.”

“Alright class, that’s enough!” Oikawa sings it through the comm, but each word sounds bitten off, snapped in half. “We got our mission brief. You three are gonna swing Agent Ugly Gorilla out of there and I’m on comms.” A burst of angry static from Iwaizumi’s end. “Yes, yes, roger that, don’t worry, we’ll get you home in time for dinner!”

The mission is simple enough: one file, one mark, one kill. 

Nerves run tense and excited throughout Kageyama’s entire body. He’s been waiting so long for this chance, to go out there and test himself — his entire world narrowed down to a single window in a hotel penthouse, framed by the sights on his scope. And he waits. With a team at his back, with the stars coming out on this little rooftop across the way, he feels that hunger burn in him all over again. His rifle is heavy and warm under his hands. Nitroglycerine, sweet lemon, winter chill. Rooftops will always feel a little bit like home.

“We have—”

“Unconfirmed number of men—”

Static plays like a staccato burst in his heart. Shadows cross the window; too many of them. He doesn’t recognise the fear gripping him until his discipline slips just a little against the trigger. Sweat wets the back of his neck even in the cold air.

It’s always been Oikawa and Iwaizumi on the ground, but tonight, it’s just Iwaizumi-san going in. A simple mission, their handlers had said: one kill.

The shatter of glass is so loud he can hear it like a gunshot breaking open the night.

“I’ve lost visual of Agent Four, I repeat—” Panic clouds Kindaichi’s voice. He’s the closest to the ground, waiting to bounce Iwaizumi out once they’ve secured the file and the kill order.

“I want eyes on Four asap,” Oikawa snarls into the comm. “Two, get in there and get him out. And you better come back too, idiot!”

“Is that an order, Oikawa-san?”

“Use codenames during a mission, idiot-kouhai-chan!”

The night flows like ink around him as Kageyama lands on the hotel balcony, slips inside. It’s all the things that feel so right, so natural — his body knows what to do, here like this, his instincts honed so sharp it’s a seamless path to the hotel penthouse, leading with his drawn pistol, flitting from shadow to shadow to shadow. Fear stalks the ground with him; fear keeps him safe. He’s not going to let Oikawa-san or Iwaizumi-san or any of his team down.

“Two, you’re clear to pursue.” Kunimi sounds cool even now. Kageyama wonders when Oikawa had handed the comms over to him.

The lush carpet leading up to the penthouse is littered with glass; the lights are out, and it’s only the city’s neon glow mirrored and glittering that picks out the glimpses of stately art pieces rising against the wall here, heavy wooden furniture sitting there.

_No_ , not furniture. 

The unmoving bodies of dead men. The air is misted with the metallic scent of blood, unsettled, still moving, still alive, somewhere in the dark.

Kageyama sees— he’s not sure what he sees. He _thinks_ he sees Iwaizumi-san. He knows he sees moonlight carving out a path from the sky window behind him to the muzzle of a gun levelled right at him. 

And Kageyama knows he hesitates.

And he knows he hears Oikawa-san yelling in his ear, _“Tobio, don’t move!”_

Oikawa’s orders told him to come back; Oikawa’s orders root him to the spot. 

_Obedient, hopelessly obedient_ , even as high-powered sniper shots pelt the carpet around him like lightning — one, two, three, the quick patter of an old pop song. Kageyama faintly wonders how Oikawa managed to get to the vantage point across the way so quickly. A stray shot clips his ear, pain moving so quickly and distantly his own blood is only a splatter of rain streaking wet across his cheek, a fog coppery and primal, and with gunpowder lighting up the night like this, Kageyama thinks, for the briefest moment, how much it smells like his little nest tucked away in the sky. The same way Oikawa-san smells, too, and then—

The window gives away and he’s falling through open air. The cold rush cuts him like a knife. _Freefall churning in his stomach. Overwhelming._

And Kageyama wonders if flying is supposed to feel a little like dying, maybe.

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> _Without your past,_   
>  _you could never have arrived,_   
>  _so wondrously and brutally,_   
>  _by design or some violent, exquisite happenstance_   
>  _... here._
> 
> [Sorry about the playlist.](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/73OoTX3ZzjcYq8XQfuGaeX)


End file.
